This semester, instead of a full complement of CS or math classes, I’m taking a few liberal arts classes in government and philosophy. One of the classes I’m taking, Constitutional Interpretation (which is really constitutional law), is considered one of the most—if not the most—challenging classes offered by the government department. The professor usually teaches in the law school, but occasionally teaches undergraduate classes; when he does, he usually teaches them the same way he teaches them in law school.
“I feel like I don’t get excited about computer science stuff anymore.”
A friend of mine mentioned that in a group chat during winter break. My knee-jerk reaction, “Go read cool articles!” was rather hypocritical. I don’t read as many tech articles as I should. However, I still felt the burning need to defend computer science. Computer science was not just “exciting!” but “EXCITING!!!” - 24/7, 365 days of the year.
My grandma is someone I really look up to. When she was about my age, she was operating telephone switchboards for Ford Motor Company, braving harsh Michigan winters, and probably making lots of people feel crazy for thinking they could beat her at Euchre.
The summer before I started my computer science degree, I set the goal of making an app and getting it on the Apple app store. I’m graduating in May, and so far it still hasn’t happened
My Facebook news feed has recently been peppered with a string of ridiculous and delightful events that perfectly sum up my feelings as the semesters draws to a close.
It is well known in computer science circles that women earn only 18.2% of CS bachelors degrees, despite the fact that they earn 57.3% of college degrees overall. Many attempts have been made to explain this disparity, and to reverse the trend as we go forward.
I’m not a certified doctor, but I’m pretty sure I got glasses from reading too much (I’m also pretty sure I almost burned down my childhood home from reading too much - but that’s a different story). Third grade was the year I got glasses (I spent hours in the store on a personal quest trying to find the most Harry-Potter-like glasses), and that was also the year I started reading novels way past my bed time by the dim light of my desk lamp.
Last week, I wrote an article called “Get Back Up”. You can read it here.
Later that week, I learned that the post had received an absurd view count. Most of our articles get anywhere from 50 to 300 views in a week; this one received close to 4,500.
Guess the Scene: I do not know what I’m doing and it’s just me, the whiteboard, and an unbearably awkward aura, accentuated only by the mute blinking of the engineer sitting at the table behind me.
Where am I? An interview (that is crashing and burning) of course.
My future career has been something that I’ve put thought into in nearly every stage of my life. When I was in pre-school, I wanted to be an “office worker” because I REALLY liked bubble wrap. When I was in fifth grade, I wanted to be a lawyer, because I visited the courthouse downtown in Los Angeles and was really impressed by the architecture. When I was just starting high school, I wanted to be an architect. Now, somehow, I’m a computer scientist.